The way we view the world, envisage possibilities for social change and strive for improvement in the quality of life is highly complex, with significant challenges in rapidly changing landscapes of the 21st century.

This book, edited by Herrmann and with contributions from Earles and Kratzwald, revisits, with fresh insight, key sociological, philosophical, political and cultural theoretical frameworks of relevance to contemporary globalised world. The book is thought-provoking in its central thesis which posits that there is a tendency for the ‘re-feudalisation’ of production and reproduction and where economics is enmeshed with all elements of social life. Herrmann takes us on a journey of revisiting the concept of citizenship, that all important, and yet unclear concept. We are confronted with how citizenship is redefined in the face of modern globalised capitalism where the state is an instrument of global economics. The author visits key questions of rights, inclusion-exclusion within bounded territoriality and spatial boundaries in the context of globalisation where borders are porous. The notion of citizenship calls into question its inextricable links to the nation-state. Hermann challenges us to think through the complexity of this relationship including the technocratic nature of contemporary nation-states, what is the ‘common good’ and the relevance of collective rights. He also presents a critique of the nation state across the different historical stages of society (from slave society to global capitalist) and how the different stages of the nation state are characterised (i) on power, (ii) territoriality and (iii) on how it is related to economic structures and class division/division of labour.

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This treatise provides a firm basis for thought in social policy development in our changing world. It is an academic equivalent of the phrase “look before you leap”. Used in a module format this book would be useful as a basis for discussion in both university and think tank seminars.